


Baby, It's Cold Inside

by CommaSplice



Series: Aegon Targaryen Memorial Library Universe [8]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-01-25
Packaged: 2018-01-09 23:11:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1151916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CommaSplice/pseuds/CommaSplice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After moving into a new apartment together, Jaime and Brienne are forced to improvise when their heat goes out during a brutal snowstorm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baby, It's Cold Inside

**Author's Note:**

> It's part of a series, but this should stand on its own. For those of you who didn't read "The Bear Stays" in this 'verse, Jaime and Brienne are now a couple.

* * *

It was debatable whether it was any warmer inside than it was outside. Jaime tried to ignore the chill in the air and focus on the one coming through the phone. “Father, I’m not sure what you expect me to do.”

“If you had used the movers Ms Westerling had found, none of this would have happened.”

“Their trucks don’t get caught in snowstorms? How silly of us. If we had known they possessed magical powers, we would have gone with them.” Jaime watched as one of their new neighbors made his way into the building. The man was covered with snow and ice. 

“That is beside the point.”

Jaime thought it was precisely the point, but it was useless to say this. Father would just sweep over the logic. “I should get back upstairs to Brienne.”

“You two should come and stay with me.”

“And how—” Jaime stopped himself. He remembered what the therapist had said. “Father, we appreciate the offer, but I’m not sure how we could get there.”

“Hmph.” There was a pause. “I suppose you’re right. Very well,” Father said with a sigh. “If there is a break in the storm and you feel you can come here—”

“We will.” If what he was seeing out the lobby window was any indication, he and Brienne were very much stuck.

* * *

Brienne’s phone rang and she picked it up.

“You shouldn’t be answering your phone!”

“Dad, hi.” She repressed a sigh. She knew exactly what was coming next. 

“I’m watching the news. It’s terrible there.”

She told herself he meant well. “I know.” On a clear day, their new apartment had a fantastic view of the city. Right now all she could see were millions of swirling flakes of white. 

“Do you have power?”

“Yes.” She didn’t want to answer the next question. “I should go and charge the phone just in case.”

“Do you have heat?”

Brienne leaned back against the exposed brick of the wall and shut her eyes. 

“Dandelion?”

“Not at the moment. The property manager will fix it as soon as possible.” She didn’t need to tell him that the property manager was trapped clear across town and had no way of getting there in the foreseeable future. 

There was silence.

She bit her lip. “Dad, we’ll be fine. We have . . .” They had an air mattress, a card table, two lawn chairs, some kitchen things, and an insane number of boxes. They had been in the new space for a grand total of one and a half days. Due to the storm, the trucks containing the rest of their belongings and new furniture were stuck somewhere halfway across town.

“Did my housewarming present arrive?” he demanded.

“Yes.” Brienne looked around. “It’s here. I was waiting to open it with Jaime.” She had a space heater somewhere as well. If she could just find that, they could get through the night. Right now, she was regretting the choice to move into a loft. Whatever warm air there was had risen to the tops of the impossibly high ceilings. 

“If you can’t go someplace warm, it will have everything you need.”

She had a fair idea what it contained now. “Jaime is looking forward to meeting you.”

“I am too, Dandelion, but we shouldn’t waste your battery power on chitchat. You should only use the phone for emergencies.”

Her father would have freaked if she hadn’t answered the phone, but it was useless to mention the inconsistency. “Okay, Dad. Will do.”

* * *

Brienne opened the door for him. “The property manager can’t get over here until they call off the travel ban.”

Jaime blew on his hands to try and warm them. “I would say we could risk the ticket and go to Father’s or Tyrion’s, but there’s at least three feet of unplowed snow on the street. And from the way it’s coming down, there will be another foot very soon.” He removed his muffler and hat. “I told you we should have taken the apartment with the fireplace.”

“You hated it,” she objected.

“I didn’t like the way the landlord was leering at you,” Jaime clarified. He stamped his feet on the mat at the front door and divested himself of his boots. He kept the coat on. “The apartment itself was fine.”

“He wasn’t leering at me. He probably couldn’t believe how tall I am. It’s my height, Jaime. If we’re going to be together, you’ll need to get used to it. People stare.”

He shook his head. “He was leering. Did you find the space heater?”

“I know I have one. Somewhere. I did find the housewarming gift Dad sent us.” Brienne gestured to a large box in the middle of the room. “I’m going to make us some tea.”

The warmth Jaime had experienced from coming into the apartment from the outside was dissipating. He blew on his hands again and went to look at the box. “We could make hot toddies.”

“Alcohol lowers your body temperature. Tea is better.”

“But not nearly as much fun. Wench, how is a housewarming present going to help us in our present situation?”

“If it’s what I think it is, we should open it.”

He ripped the tape off of the box Selwyn Tarth had sent them. “Oh.”

“I grew up on an island in the Stormlands. What my father doesn’t know about emergency preparedness isn’t worth knowing.”

Jaime unpacked an economy size box of candles; a special lighter; a hand crank cell phone charger; a flashlight that didn’t require batteries; a flashlight that did; a battery operated radio; a variety of batteries; a large thermal blanket; a fully equipped first aid kit; a host of things he couldn’t identify, but which presumably Brienne could; and a selection of MREs. “We are not resorting to these.” He’d eaten his fill in the Army.

“We may have to if the electricity goes out.”

“We have Cheez Doodles. Those will sustain us. Your father does know that we live in King’s Landing and not beyond the Wall, doesn’t he?”

Brienne opened up a cupboard and fished around for the tea. “He doesn’t have the highest opinion about mainlanders and he worries about me. Besides.” She found mugs in a box with her library school textbooks, some old cassette tapes, and a set of sheets. “Your father’s housewarming gift is beautiful, but it’s not going to keep us warm.” 

Jaime looked at the crystal vase set on one of the card tables. She had a point. He had yet to meet Selwyn Tarth so he supposed he shouldn’t make any cracks. He rubbed his hands together. “Do you have any idea in what area of the apartment the box with the space heater could be located?” 

“I’ve looked through every one that was labeled.” The kettle whistled and she poured the steaming water into the mugs. 

“We probably should not have trusted to Bronn and Tyrion to help us.”

This statement proved truer than either would have liked as they continued opening boxes. 

“Your brother meant well,” Brienne said doubtfully. “But I told you I was right about not giving them beer before the job was done.”

Jaime snorted.

The apartment was growing chillier by the hour. Finally, after a meal of a strange assortment of leftover takeout and snack food, they set to figuring out how they were going to get through the night. 

They’d yet to get anything up on the windows and the loft lent itself to drafts.

“Blanket fort,” Jaime finally said.

“What?”

He pulled out several from one of the bigger boxes. “We’ll set up a blanket fort around the air mattress. That will help with the drafts and we’ll sleep under the thermal Mylar blanket your father gave us.”

“We’re very tall,” Brienne said doubtfully. “The blanket isn’t going to cover all of us.”

Jaime inspected the package. “I think we might be all right, but we should wear wool socks. I found some in the box with your sporting equipment and the dish towels. We’ll have the comforter as well.”

“All right,” she agreed. “I wonder if we should have gone with the moving company your father suggested.”

Jaime laughed. “Don’t tell him or we’ll never hear the end of it.”

The structure they created would probably not have passed muster with a discerning seven-year-old or Brienne’s father, but it did help. They crawled into it.

Jaime rolled carefully onto his side. He didn’t need to advise her. She turned on her side and they spooned together. 

“Did you ever make one of these when you were a kid?”

He slung an arm around her. “Once. Uncle Gerion came to visit. Father had gone out to some business affair and he was home alone with us. He took every blanket in the house and constructed a very elaborate fort in the family room. Tyrion loved it. Even Cersei got into it.” 

“And when your father came home?”

“There were words.”

“Words?”

Jaime laughed. “All right, there was an argument, but even Father has a hard time staying angry with Uncle Gerion. Once Father’s bedding was returned, we were allowed to spend the night in my uncle’s creation. What about you?”

Brienne snuggled more closely against him. “He took me camping. Dad was never big on ‘let’s pretend.’ He’s a very practical man.” 

“Is he going to like me?”

She didn’t answer right away.

“No?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “He’s worried about the age difference and he’s concerned you’re not good enough for me.”

They would have something in common then. Jaime adjusted the comforter. “Did you like to play ‘let’s pretend?’” 

“Why do you think I took up fencing and sword fighting? I wanted to be the Maid of Tarth having a dozen adventures saving the Kingslayer from certain death.”

Jaime had never been big on history, but the Kingslayer had been one of the few famous Lannisters that actually appealed to him. “I seem to recall he rescued the Maid of Tarth at least once, if not more.”

She made a sound that he thought was a snort. It was hard to tell with her mouth obscured by all the covers.

“If we have kids we should let them make all the blanket forts they want.” 

“Agreed.”

“When Father asks, tell him we were very comfortable during the storm and that we did just fine without his moving company.”

“And when my dad asks, tell him his housewarming present saved our lives.”

When they woke, it was morning and it was warm. Jaime went out first to investigate. The heat was back on, and from the looks of it, the snow had finally stopped falling. He crawled back in and reported.

“So why are we still in here?” she wanted to know as he got back under the covers.

Jaime grinned. “I thought we might play ‘let’s pretend.’ I’ll be the Kingslayer and you can be the Maid of Tarth and—”

“—You’ll make the blanket fort collapse on top of us?” Brienne said moments later, her voice muffled by layers of wool and the ominous sound of air hissing out of their bed.

If there was one thing the military had taught Jaime, it was how to improvise. “And despite being smothered by heavy blankets, the Kingslayer will—”

“—Be rescued by the Maid of Tarth?” Brienne laughed. “I know my history, Jaime.”

“The Kingslayer and the Maid of Tarth will rescue each other and make mad passionate love on a deflating air mattress.”

There was a pause. “Let’s pretend.”

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Rellie, who kindly allowed me to adopt "Dandelion" (Selwyn's term of endearment for Brienne) which she uses to amazing effect in [The Covering Sky](http://archiveofourown.org/works/813223/chapters/1537534)


End file.
